


Paucity - Cold

by cutsycat



Series: Dictionary.Com Word of the Day Drabbles [1524]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-01-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:00:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22250695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutsycat/pseuds/cutsycat
Summary: Mostly what Tony remembers about Christmas as a child is that it was always cold. Can the team's vacation improve his Christmas spirit?
Series: Dictionary.Com Word of the Day Drabbles [1524]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/444514
Comments: 4
Kudos: 30
Collections: 2020 Twelve Days of Christmas, The Writer's Guild Community





	Paucity - Cold

**Author's Note:**

> Another dictionary.com word of the day drabble. This time from 07/03/2003 for the word [paucity](http://www.dictionary.com/wordoftheday/2003/07/03/paucity).
> 
> paucity[ paw-si-tee ]  
> noun  
> smallness of quantity; scarcity; scantiness:  
> a country with a paucity of resources.  
> smallness or insufficiency of number; fewness.
> 
> This is for Day 1 of the Twelve Days of Christmas challenge. Today's prompt is Cold.

Tony shivered. He didn’t know exactly what happened, but his father had stormed through the mansion yelling about the incompetence of the power company, so Tony assumed they were without heat. It should have been one of the happiest days of his life you believed the other kids, but in this house Christmas was just another day.

The only time he’d ever seen a treeful of gifts was the one time that Senior had a business meeting shortly before Christmas. Even then, Tony didn’t get any of the gifts. The housekeeper had sniffed and pointed out that it wouldn’t have mattered if he did. All the boxes were empty.

He wasn’t amongst the orphans or kids with parents who had a paucity of resources, but in a lot of ways those kids were luckier than him. At least, their parents truly cared about them and tried to make Christmas special for them. Heck, even the orphans had people who would donate gifts to them around this time. 

Tony couldn’t help feeling jealous as he knew his latest stepmother had donated something to the orphans, but once again he wasn’t going to get anything for Christmas. He couldn’t remember the last time Christmas was a happy memory instead of one of the most miserable days of his life. Maybe when his mother was still alive.

Tony shook his head to clear the memories of when he was a kid. He was freezing now too, but the difference was he was prepared for it. Though even with three layers of clothes on, the wind still whipped through his clothes at times. 

He wasn’t sure if this group trip was going to be a repeat of some of his boarding school Christmas adventures or another day on the job. He couldn’t imagine it being anything else. He’d taken to working Christmas every year that he could. It saved him from being alone and miserable and allowed him to feel like he was helping.

Even if he wasn’t solving a case, at least he was letting someone else have a happier Christmas than he would. Apparently, he’d worked too many Christmases at NCIS and someone had mentioned it to Gibbs. Tony was pretty sure it was more like Director Morrow ordered Gibbs to not let any of his team work the holiday.

So now Kate, Tim, Abby, Ducky, Gibbs, and Jimmy were all on “vacation” in the mountains. Gibbs had picked the place and Tony was pretty sure that he’d picked the remotest mountain possible. Tony wasn’t sure why Gibbs wanted to be trapped in a wood cabin surrounded by snow, but as everyone else was doing it and HR wouldn’t let him go into work instead, he’d found himself joining the group.

They were near a fancy resort that offered skiing and snowboarding and many other winter adventures, but weren’t actually staying at one of the nice fancy resorts that had all the amenities to chase away the cold. Tony couldn’t help being reminded of the many times they’d lost power over Christmas when he was a kid. The mansion hadn’t kept heat in well and it was even worse without power. 

This cabin didn’t even have electricity running to it. There was a fireplace, but unless they all got cozy one fireplace wasn’t going to do much for staving off the cold. Tony didn’t understand how this could be fun for anyone, but Abby was bouncing up and down in excitement and even Gibbs had a small smile on his face.

Tony, on the other hand, was recounting how many blankets he’d brought and if he needed more. He was also strongly considering getting his own reservation at one of the actual resort cabins where there would be electricity and TV and warm cocoa and a million other things to make the cold weather bearable. He didn’t want to seem weak in front of his coworkers, so he’d refrained for now, but that might change depending on how this crazy trip went.

It was only the first night and they’d basically just gotten checked in. Well there wasn’t a check in process actually, as this was Gibbs’ cabin, but they’d had to get food supplies and various other resources like firewood to make sure they’d be stocked for their stay since it had been a while since Gibbs had visited his cabin. Gibbs was working on getting a nice fire going right now and had promised them a great meal.

Tony knew that their meal tonight would be steaks, but he wasn’t sure what they would have during the rest of their stay. It wasn’t like they just had boxes and boxes of steaks available for them to cook and what else could you make over a fire besides steak? Maybe Tony could convince everyone to head over to the restaurant at the resort for a meal. Heck, he might even be willing to pay for everyone’s meal if it meant he didn’t have to eat bugs and dirt for dinner. 

Everyone was currently chit chatting like they were a family or something. Usually talking was Tony’s game, but he had to admit he didn’t know what to say. Abby and Tim were talking about holiday traditions and Ducky and Jimmy about something that Tony wasn’t sure if it was a recipe or something medical examiner related. Gibbs' focus was solely on the fireplace, so that left Kate for Tony to talk to and while he usually enjoyed picking on her like brother and sister at work, right now he was feeling too vulnerable to initiate anything like that. It would have sounded off and drawn even more attention to him than his current silence was.

Kate didn’t seem to mind the lack of conversation from Tony and joined in with Tim and Abby on the holiday tradition discussion. Tony had never heard of most of the things they were discussing. Turducken? What was that?

Pretty soon, Ducky and Jimmy and even Gibbs had offered up their own holiday traditions and everyone was staring at Tony wanting to know what he did for the holidays. Tony froze. He knew he had a deer in the headlights expression on his face, but he truly didn’t know what to say. Boarding school hadn’t prepared him for this as everyone there also had sucky Christmases or they’d have gone home during the holidays. 

Should he spout something from a Christmas movie? He was pretty sure he shouldn’t tell the truth that he’d spent more Christmases freezing his ass off than getting presents. Honestly, he wasn’t sure there was anything he could say that they would actually believe.

He tried to play it cool. “We didn’t really have any traditions except for freezing our asses off.” Hopefully they’d think that was snowball fights or something and not realize that most of the time Christmas was spent without heat.

“Nothing?” Kate asked, surprised.

Tony shrugged, “My dad wasn’t really the family get together type.”

“Damn. That sucks, Tony. Christmas was the best because of the traditions. Even my father unbent a little at Christmas. At least enough to dress up as Santa and hand out presents,” McGee murmured.

“Eh. It wasn’t a big deal.” Tony tried to dismiss it. He hated being the center of pity. He could see that none of them were buying it, but fortunately they dropped it for now.

It helped that the steaks were ready. Gibbs had even managed to do up some green beans to go with the steaks. Tony suspected that was just to appease Ducky and avoid some long lecture about healthy editing, however.

Unfortunately, the topic seemed to stay on Christmas. Tony really wanted to talk about something else. He’d gotten everyone gifts because that was the societal norm, but it wasn’t some huge conspiracy for world peace or whatever like they were making it out to be.

Santa wasn’t some jolly old fellow who brought happiness to little boys and girls. He was usually a drunkard at the mall who couldn’t hold down another job. Tony had seen enough Christmas antics to know that was the cold hard truth no matter what anyone else said. 

After all, someone who knew whether you were naughty or nice? Someone who snuck into your house while you were sleeping? That sounded like a stalker to Tony. He’d never understood the prevalent belief that this was a good thing.

Even after watching a bunch of Christmas movies involving the Christmas spirit, he still didn’t get it. As far as he could tell it was a bunch of people putting a bunch of faith in something and making the best of it even when times were tough. The stories were touching, but they weren’t real life.

Eventually, everyone settled in for the night. The beds weren’t exactly comfortable. It was obvious that the cabin had never been intended to hold this many people. There was only one bed and even if they’d wanted to, there was no way that they’d all fit in it. 

Fortunately, Gibbs seemed to have expected this and had a bunch of sleeping bags and little cot like beds in a shed that he pulled out for everyone. Now they were all bundled up in sleeping bags in front of the fireplace. 

It wasn’t exactly a comfortable experience as far as Tony was concerned, but it was better than he’d expected. He’d honestly thought that they’d be at each other’s throats the entire time like they were in the office when they were bored. 

Tony had trouble falling asleep. He just wasn’t used to sleeping with so many people nearby and he hated to say it, but some of them were really bad snorers. By the time he actually managed to fall asleep, it was probably 3am. 

So when people started getting up around 6am or 7am, Tony tried really hard to ignore them. Rolling over, he buried his head under the pillow. It didn’t really help as most of them weren’t trying to be quiet in the slightest.

Tony finally gave up on sleep and rubbed at his eyes. Even though the others had only been up for a couple hours at most, the entire cabin had changed. “What happened?”

“Just a little Christmas cheer.” Abby grinned as she gestured at the new decorations. 

There was a tree full to the brim with presents both in the tree and under it. Mistletoe and bright lights hung from the ceiling. Tony couldn’t believe his eyes. It was like he’d stepped into an alternate dimension.

Was this what the movies meant about Christmas magic? He’d never seen anything like it before. “What’s going on?”

“You’ll see. It’s a surprise.” Abby winked.

Tony had a bad feeling about this. Whenever Abby got something in her head, it never turned out well for him. 

“I’m looking forward to the festivities this evening,” Kate agreed.

Tony raised an eyebrow, but he seemed to be the only one with reservations. McGee was grinning broadly and even Ducky and Jimmy seemed like they were looking forward to it. Tony wasn’t sure how Gibbs felt, but as he was making breakfast instead of running for the hills Tony figured that Gibbs wasn’t too worried about it.

He’d have to just tough out whatever was about to happen. Breakfast involved a lot of bacon and some fresh fruit and even pancakes. Tony wondered how Gibbs was able to make pancakes over a fire and have them come out halfway decent. That didn’t stop Tony and the rest from enjoying themselves, however. 

“This is goo,” McGee complimented with his mouth full. 

“Excellent job on breakfast, Jethro.”

Before Tony knew it, the time for their evening celebration had rolled around. Blankets were handed out and everyone was sitting around the fireplace cuddled up beneath the blankets. Tony couldn’t shake the feeling that this is what a real family was like. 

Before he knew it, Gibbs was handing out gifts and everyone was tearing into their presents. Tony hadn’t expected much, so he was surprised that his pile had the most presents in it. He’d thought maybe a few movies and a gift certificate to a fancy restaurant was all he’d be getting. 

Instead, he had a couple of movies that he’d wanted for a while, a carved miniature piano, a photo of the team, some hot chocolate, and not only a gift card to his favorite restaurant but a team agreement to go with him for a night out. Tony was touched. He thought maybe he was beginning to understand the Christmas magic that the movies talked about. He certainly wasn’t cold anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> The dictionary.com series has no stories already written for it after this one, so I will be posting at least no more stories before I stop posting again. I'm hoping to get more stories written before then, so that I don't stop posting for a while. Wish me luck! 
> 
> The 2020 Prompts are open now! Go forth and prompt me! [Click here](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/cutsycat_NCIS_Prompts_2020/profile) to add your prompts to my 2020 Prompt Collection. Just click the sign up link. ;) I'm hoping to complete all the 2020 prompts by the end of 2021. 
> 
> If you are not an ao3 member, you can prompt me [here](http://cutsycat.livejournal.com/50701.html). Please follow the same rules as are listed in the above link. However, because this is a handmade prompt form(that thinks it's a poll), it is considerably more limited than what ao3 provides, so please use the ao3 form if you're an ao3 member. Please note the name option is for a name that I can say this is for so that you know it's for you. Since this is for non ao3 members it won't be true gifts, but you will be mentioned in the notes. Please note if you have already voted in the poll and would like to request more stories you can just add a comment to the poll. Please include the name along with the prompt, so that I can appropriately gift the prompt to you.
> 
> For any authors that want to chat and/or are looking for a place where they can toss plot ideas around and get input from people, you can come join my discord server that is specifically geared towards writing/encouraging people to write and authors. The invite link is [here](https://discord.gg/HFvwpCq). If you're not an author, but want to chat with me about writing/stories or anything else you are welcome to join. I reserve the right to boot you from my server if all you do is pester me about updates, however. *grin* Really anyone who wants to talk about writing and/or plot ideas for various stories is welcome to join. 
> 
> Also, Drakonyashka has translated a couple of my works into Russian. [Tutelage](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12378780) and [Imbue](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12378840). Go support them. 


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